Advantages of Optical Fiber Cable and Category 7 Twisted Pair

In network cabling, two network signal transmission media, twisted pair and optical fiber, are indispensable. There are many types of twisted-pair cables. At present, the mainstream cables are Category 5, Category 6, or even Category 7. Usually, twisted pair is divided into shielded and unshielded; optical fiber is divided into single-mode fiber and multi-mode fiber. . ZR Cable will tell you about the advantages of optical fiber and Category 7 twisted pair.

Optical fiber, especially single-mode optical fiber cable, can be used for high-speed network transmission, and has the advantages of innate electromagnetic interference immunity, strong reliability, and support for long-distance transmission. It is an ideal network transmission medium in the future, and its status is increasingly important. However, the cost of optical cable equipment, materials and termination is relatively expensive, and the installation is relatively complicated, so it is generally suitable for long-distance and large-capacity wiring. At present, 62.5/125μm multimode optical cable has become the mainstream wiring medium in the integrated wiring backbone system, and the application in the horizontal system has become increasingly widespread.

ZR Cable fiber optic cable

Unshielded twisted pair UTP is currently the most widely used wiring system in China. It is suitable for network applications with transmission bandwidth below 250MHz and no special performance requirements. Its advantages are good overall performance, low price, and convenient construction and maintenance. Category 6 cabling systems have reached the performance limit of unshielded twisted pair.

Aluminum foil shielded twisted pair FTP has large bandwidth, strong anti-interference performance, and has the characteristics of low smoke and no halogen. In contrast, the price and installation cost of shielded cables are higher than that of unshielded cables, and the cable bending performance is slightly worse. Category 6 cables and previous shielding systems mostly use this form.

Independently shielded twisted pair STP, each pair of wires has an aluminum foil shielding layer, and the four pairs of wires together have a common metal braided shielding layer, which is the standard structure of seven types of network cables. It is suitable for high-speed network applications, provides highly confidential transmission, supports new applications in the future, and helps to unify the wiring platform of current network applications, so that all kinds of information from e-mail to multimedia videos can be stored in the same high-speed system. transmission in.

The extra shielding allows Category 7 cables to have a larger wire diameter. These features require special care when designing installation routing and termination spaces, allowing for large spaces and large bend radii.

Moreover, due to its excellent shielding design and high bandwidth, a typical Category 7 channel can even provide 862MHz bandwidth for one pair of cables at the same time to transmit cable TV signals, another pair to transmit analog audio signals, and then a third pair to transmit analog audio signals. , Four-pair transmission of high-speed LAN information. This application is currently unimaginable, but will soon be realized by Category 7 cabling systems.

Compared to fiber optic LANs, the Category 7 cable system solution provides the desired performance and bandwidth, but at a fraction of the overall cost of fiber. Some people will think that fiber optic systems can give people enough bandwidth, and the price of fiber optic cable is similar to that of Category 7 cable. However, if the cost factors of fiber routers, optical switches and optical network cards are taken into account, the price advantage of optical fiber will be quickly lost.